Author’s note: “Weekend Short” is a recurring column profiling short stories. Analysis from the readership is encouraged in the comments section.
Welcome to the weekend!
Today’s story, “Two Friends,” considers the effect of politics on friendships. A study of male relationships and customs, the story is astonishing for its clarity as well as the beauty of the prose.
“Two Friends” was published in 1932 in Woman’s Home Companion and written by Willa Cather, a woman born in Virginia in 1873 and subsequently raised on the Nebraska frontier from the age of ten. The story, narrated by a child who may well be a stand-in for Cather, occurs “in a little wooden town in a shallow Kansas river valley” where men who speak of things other than politics or business are rare. The narrator finds herself drawn to an odd couple: a punctilious Irish banker, Democrat, and entrepreneur who shares the culminating hours of the day with a gravitic Republican cattleman out on the porch of the Irishman’s general store.
Cather writes:
Long ago, before the invention of the motorcar (which has made more changes in the world than the War, which indeed produced the particular kind of war that happened just a hundred years after Waterloo), in a little wooden town in a shallow Kansas river valley, there lived two friends. They were “business men,” the two most prosperous and influential men in our community, the two men whose affairs took them out into the world to big cities, who had “connections” in St. Joseph and Chicago. In my childhood they represented to me success and power.
You can read the rest here, listen to it here, and purchase a copy here.
One must stop for a moment to enjoy this sentence: “Mr. Dillon, of course, was a Democrat — it was in the very frosty sparkle of his speech — and Mr. Trueman was a Republican; his rear, as he walked about the town, looked a little like the walking elephant labelled “G. O. P.” in Puck. But each man seemed to enjoy hearing his party ridiculed, took it as a compliment.”
Unfortunately, as those who’ve read the story know, that happy disagreeableness did not last. The election of 1896, in which the Democrats and Populists argued in favor of the inflationary policy of silver-backed currency (which sounds all the more antiquated to us now on the other side of a central banking system), rends the friendship. Or, rather, Mr. Dillon becomes a creature of politics and what was once a pleasurable truce with his soul’s opposite, Mr. Trueman, is now a betrayal of his “higher calling” to elect William Jennings Bryan.
The narrator is heartbroken, having shared the evenings with the men as a public eavesdropper, an audience for their social histories, recollections of art, and tales of travel. Dillon has wronged Trueman, and the pride of each — often remarked upon by the narrator — means there can be no resolution. Watching those I know these past ten years, there are certainly many contemporary examples of petty political gripes unmaking fraternity and institutions. It’s a shame, is what it is. At least there’s historical precedent for the stupidity that comes from human vanity.
Many thanks to Rick Brookhiser for suggesting the works of Cather.
The man I call the “Wealthiest Man in Waupaca County” died this past week. We’d visit him at his sawmill and apiary at the end of a dirt road near Norsk, Wisconsin. A barrel-chested son of Norwegian immigrants, Julian held court most mornings with his friends from all over the county arranged around the Formica-topped kitchen table and among the half-finished beehive boxes and jars. Each man’s name was inscribed on a Uline foam coffee cup, with the disposable cups returning to their permanent positions atop the refrigerator after the visiting was done and the world’s problems solved for the day.
A veteran of the Korean War, Julian worked in the motor pool over there, and then did his time in the Milwaukee machinery industry as a union man. His hands were twice as thick as those of most other grown men, and his land was dotted with all manner of contraptions — from 1928 Fords to Frankenstein-ed generators — all of which he was confident he could get running in “two-tree hours.” The bears were kept away from the beehives with radios bought at Goodwill that would play modern-pop music. Wisconsin bears have discerning ears, after all. Julian was interviewed by researchers from the University of Oslo studying the dialect of Norwegian immigrants — his own a charming blend of American English and the Old Country that eschewed the “th” but avoided any harshness because of the Scandi lilt that made every sentence melodic.
I had the opportunity to interview him with my grandma some time ago, which you can listen to here. His humble bulk, always wearing well-used overalls, seated across from us as we’d surprise him with sticky buns on a Saturday, will be sorely missed, as will his ability to bring political aspirants, businessmen, lawyers, and classic-car enthusiasts out to 300 acres of logging trails and beehives. Julian was what Dillon and Trueman failed to continue being: an institution, a member of the local Lutheran church, and a great American.
R.I.P. Julian Merde
Author’s note: If there’s a short story you’d like to see discussed in the coming weeks, please send your suggestion to label@nationalreview.com.